This Week on My Bookshelf – September 4, 2015

Hi All,

As I’ve said before, I read more than just novels; I want to give loves to the comics I read as well. This week was all trades, but, if the mood strikes, I might add some other books if I can’t get the word count for that review up to over five hundred. I’m going to try and do this every Friday, so make sure to subscribe.

Trigun Omnibus

This book covers the original run of Yasuhiro Nightow’s Trigun: Deep Space Future Gun Action!! manga. It’s about the life of “The Humanoid Typhoon”, Vash the Stampede, as he travels across the planet, Gunsmoke, in search of his murderous brother, Millions Knives. While Vash has taken a vow of no killing, that doesn’t stop trouble from following him wherever he goes. Not with a 60 billion double dollar bounty on his head.

Do not ask me how much a double dollar is, because I have been wondering for over 12 years.

I bought this manga simply because I loved the anime, Trigun. When I started, a lot of the material seemed familiar to me, as it was very much like the show. However, toward the end, there is a major difference that I am positive did not happen in the anime.

Vash the Stampede is probably my favorite anime character. He is what some fangirls would call a “sweet cinnamon roll, too good for this world”, and I would agree because Vash takes great pains not to kill even his worst enemy. His brother, however, is a psychopath. Like, I don’t know what was done to Knives to make him want to destroy humanity, but he and Vash are absolute opposites. And I love it.

Trigun had some pretty memorable characters, like Legato Blue. This guy is the most cold-blooded of murders, but that blue hair was just too gorgeous for 13-year-old me to pass up. And Nicholas D. Wolfwood (just Wolfwood in the manga) who stole my heart with his cross-shaped gun, his love for orphans, and his almost-proposal to Millie. That guy was the coolest, and he held the title for most tragic death scene until Maes Hughes’s death in Full Metal Alchemist. Tears all around.

I do plan to follow up this book with the 3 volumes of Trigun Maximum. Those books are a continuation of the original run that covers a lot of new (to me) material because it went on for years after the anime. I plan to treat Trigun like I did Basilisk, which is to take in every single version of it with absolute glee.

Gambit (2012), Vol 1: Once A Thief . . .

I’ve been a Gambit fan since I happened to catch the X-Men cartoon on Fox somewhere around 2000 (I feel like they were one of the first to give up afternoon cartoons). I have also, coincidentally, been a Rogue/Gambit fan since X-Men: Evolution dared to tease that pairing in the second or third season – but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, I love Gambit, so I’m always down to read him with or without Rogue.

Gambit has had several runs, though I feel like they might have all been limited. He was originally introduced in an X-Men plot line from the early 90s, when Storm had been de-aged to a teenager. People swear up and down that the Chris Claremont run of Gambit is the best one, but Chris Claremont was apparently defecating gold during his tenure at Marvel, so I’m not surprised. This run by James Asmus is the best one by virtue of being the only one I’ve read, besides the introduction of Gambit.

In Once A Thief, Gambit gets bored with being a good guy and decides to go and have some fun. Unfortunately, that means he’s going to pull off a heist – which goes to hell pretty quickly. It is because of this heist that he is then battling an inter-dimensional creature, kidnapped by a crime syndicate, and, finally, stealing Excalibur from the Queen of England. If you’re a Gambit fan who just wants to see your fave having some really wild adventures, this is definitely the book for you.

I really liked this trade because it was Gambit by himself doing some really reckless stuff. There are no other X-Men in this comic, but Gambit’s status as a good guy is called into question a few times. I also appreciated the use of Pete Wisdom, Dr. Faiza Hussain’s Excalibur, and Black Knight. Prior to this trade, I knew very little about them (although Faiza Hassan is Captain Britain in the Battleworld’s Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders), but now I want to know more.

Invincible, Vol. 1: Family Matters

A couple of months ago, I read an article about a list of superheroes that were parodies of other superheroes. Invincible showed up twice on the list both for its superhero teams, and it’s Superman parody, Omni-Man. I can’t remember if I knew at the time that it was a Robert Kirkman comic, but, being a The Walking Dead fan, I’m totally not surprised.

Invincible: Volume 1 is the story of Mark Grayson’s first foray into being a superhero. Son of the famous superhero, Omni-Man, Mark’s always knew that he would eventually gain super powers. And while learning to fly, beating up aliens, and stopping your science teacher from turning your classmates into bombs might be daunting to other teenagers, for Mark it’s just another day in his increasingly crazy life.

What I like about Invincible is that nothing seems to surprise anyone. Especially Mrs. Grayson, this chick is just entirely unfazed by this point. I love that Invincible knows that it’s a parody of other things, and I appreciated the Superman joke that comes pretty early on. I like that the villain’s reason for what he’s doing is basically: self-absorbed teenagers are the worst. I don’t even think that he truly thought that he was doing good work; he was honestly doing it just because.

The introduction for this trade, written by Kurt Busiek, tells you to get as far away from this book as you possibly can. Don’t. Run toward it. This book is hilarious and fun, and you will absolutely love it. Invincible is a comic that is happy to make fun of itself, but will still make you want to root for the good guy.

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